


Again

by UnfortunatelyObsessed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, M/M, ethereal, it's p much poetry, post breakup, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26721448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnfortunatelyObsessed/pseuds/UnfortunatelyObsessed
Summary: Blue.That's all Dean had been able to think.Cas was screaming and crying and blaming him for things which were absolutely his fault, and all that Dean could see was how blue the red rim made his eyes.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 18
Kudos: 95
Collections: FicFacer$ 2020





	Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CastielsCarma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastielsCarma/gifts).



> This was so much fun to write! I adore writing in this style and I hope you (CastielsCarma) and everyone else enjoys! Thank you!!!

Blue.

That's all Dean had been able to think.

Cas was screaming and crying and blaming him for things which were absolutely his fault, and all that Dean could see was how blue the red rim made his eyes.

Maybe he could've listened, offered a rebuttal. But Dean had never believed himself worthy of Castiel, and had prepared himself so thoroughly for this day that it felt more like a memory than reality.

And when Cas had asked if he had anything to say for himself, Dean hadn't been able to think past the cerulean swimming through the parts of his brain that hadn't already shut down.

And Cas had waited, with a look in those eyes that Dean could now recognize as _pleading._ He was _begging_ Dean to say something, anything, anything to keep the _thing_ between them whole.

Dean said, "Okay."

When Cas had left, somewhere in the ninety-proof eddies of his mind, Dean had expected to see that same blue everywhere he went. He expected to feel that grit pushed deep into his arteries every time the sun was high in the sky, every time he passed a lake, every time the twilight gripped him tight in its midnight fingers.

But he stopped seeing blue altogether.

It was like he had gone colorblind. The sky was grey. The lakes were brown. Blue didn't exist, because Castiel had taken it all with him and packed it into the same overnight bag that often had littered the floor of by-the-hour hotel rooms, had been kicked under beds and laid in trunks and used as a pillow as hands had pointed up to the starry night sky. Yes, Castiel had packed the color blue and taken it with him.

Dean still _felt_ the color blue. He felt it when old movies came on, or when he found another cassette out of order, or when he'd find an abandoned tie or sock shoved deep into a corner of his room, big as a double, now used as a single.

So now, with Dean stopped dead cold in the middle of a bar in Podunk, Nowhere, once again all he could think was, _Blue._

Castiel hadn't seen him, but Dean had seen _him._ That flash of beautiful, deep indigo had brought tears to Dean's eyes, vision swimming with all the shades of blue again before they vanished just as quickly. He had forgotten how beautiful blue was. He had forgotten how beautiful _Cas_ was.

Half-formed faces in his dreams could never do Castiel justice. The man moved like a god trapped in an eggshell, power and concrete bursting at every seam. There was once a time when the concrete yielded to Dean, when his fingers touched not gravel but petals, soft and inviting and promising things Dean had only dared hope to hear when he was staring death in the face. Promising worth, promising love.

Cas's bare chest could do that. Promise love. It could bring Dean to his knees, could make him change his ways, could make him feel unbroken. But Dean's ruts were furrowed deep into his own flesh, and barren chest and arched back could never fill them entirely. He walked his same paths, wheels wobbling but unable to chart a new course.

But maybe this time.

He ordered two drinks and walked one to Castiel, ice audibly chattering as his hands shook like every bit of electricity that had ever been between them was raining down from the heavens onto him: the half-finished lightning rod. His edges were melting when he managed to clatter one glass down onto the stained wood.

And then there was Blue.

"Dean," Cas intoned softly, surprised, and with a building pressure Dean no longer hated his own name.

"Hey, Cas," he responded, tongue stumbling over syllables like it had stumbled over flesh.

Cas looked around the bar briefly, and Dean wanted to follow that gaze. "What are you doing here?"

Dean used two fingers to shakily push the glass closer to Castiel's worn hands. "Buying you a drink."

There was no smile, but no frown either, and Dean sat in the rickety stool beside him.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Dean started, immediately wishing to rewind a few seconds to avoid breaching that subject so soon. He swerved into a new lane. "How are you?"

"Good, I suppose. I'm on vacation."

"And you chose here?" He wanted to take a drink and burn himself, but the condensation built on the glass and Dean had a history of letting things slip through his fingers, so he absently wiped it off.

"I miss here. It was my home for a long time." Cas took a sip of his drink, and Dean wondered which lifetime he had so fucked up in that he wasn't reincarnated as the glass against Castiel's lips. "I'm visiting old friends."

"Sam'll be glad to hear that."

"I was going to come by and see the both of you. I suppose you found me first, though."

"Dumb luck."

"Indeed." Cas took another sip of his drink, eyes averted in a way that dug a hole in Dean's abdomen.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" Dean suggested, ignoring the heart pieces still trying to form into a coherent shape.

The blue turned back to him, mildly surprised. "I'd... love to."

They left their drinks there, unfinished, and Dean led the way. "I take this route sometimes on the way home from work. It's... serene, I guess."

"Serene," Castiel repeated thoughtfully, stepping over the flowers growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. "You walk to work? What happened to Baby?"

Dean winced, because Baby had been their home, and he hadn’t been able to handle their home being empty. "The memories in there just got too loud, I guess."

Castiel shook his head in disbelief. "Who is Dean Winchester without his car?"

"Who is Dean Winchester without his Cas?" Dean joked, biting his tongue in the process. "Sorry. I... missed you."

"...you could've come after me."

Dean's hands were deep in his pockets, aiming to shove his entire self in them. "You deserved better than me, Cas."

"Was that truly your decision to make?" Castiel huffed, a single flower trampling under his heel. "It's past now. We move along."

And Dean was unsure how to say that it _wasn't_ past for him, that time had stopped when Cas had left him, and he had been stuck in that moment for over a year now. "Do you ever miss Us?"

"Of course I do," Cas said like it still hurt his tongue, like _Us_ was a piece of cracked glass he had tried to seduce with tongue and teeth and throat too many times. “But sometimes we miss things that were bad for us.”

Dean didn’t joke _‘am I bad for you, Cas?’_ because Dean knew the answer to that question. He was bad for everyone. He was bad for the air around him, the soil, the general _life_ that met him. Death might not fully surround him, but Decay did, and Rot, and Famine. Dean Winchester was sinking in muck, and he did not deserve to be saved.

“Friends with benefits just didn’t seem to… suit us, I suppose,” Cas continued after the silence had burrowed into his eardrums, reminding him just how entirely he had missed the salty cadence of Dean’s voice. “We were better as friends.”

“We can be friends, if you’d like,” Dean offered, well-aware that shoving down his feelings for Cas would be even harder than it once was, with the memory of honey and moonshine still dancing on his tastebuds from chapped lips and roaming tongue.

Castiel was shaking his head, the setting sun haloing his hair. “I don’t know that I want that, either.”

Dean wondered how many pounds of pressure it would take to flatten himself, how deep he would have to bury himself to know he would never arise and have to face that sentence again. “So then… that’s it.”

Cas’s voice was quiet as he said, “I suppose it is.”

It was more than blue, really. It was every color. It was red and pink and orange, all seeping out of the rods and cones of Dean Winchester’s eyes. It was the dullness of a previously-serene park. It was coming to terms with loneliness. It was the last page on a chapter, with the rest of the book torn out and shredded. It was The End.

Castiel was staring down at his shoes, which were black, or at least they looked that way to Dean. He was afraid to look into Castiel’s eyes, afraid that the only thing that had ever held color for him would be that same godforsaken grey.

“Can I tell you a secret, then?” Dean tried, mostly unaware of his own mouth moving. His heart was beating too loud in his ears to hear himself, let alone however Castiel responded. “I was in love with you.”

He walked on as Castiel’s shoes stopped.

“I was— am,” Dean corrected himself, moving forward, because he knew he would turn to salt were he to look back. “I am irrevocably in love with you.” His feet moved slowly, his eyes dropped further. “And you deserved better than me.”

“You ass,” Castiel said, almost clearly but not quite, the sound wobbling as it passed his lips. “How dare you?”

The abruptness — the _anger_ caused Dean to turn around, to look into blessedly blue eyes, watery, wide. “What?”

“How _dare_ you tell me this now! After I have spent a year away from you! After I have lain awake more nights than I have slept thinking about the way your lips curl when you smile! Thinking that you let me walk because you _wanted_ me to!” Castiel had stormed closer, had bared his teeth and his throat, eyes hellfire and mouth suddenly the same, crashed against Dean’s. “I loved you, too, you _ass!”_

Dean could not think beyond _honey and whiskey and moonshine and sunlight and_ “Loved?”

“Love,” Castiel corrected, spat out, like he was angry at that fact, like he wished he could punch Dean in the stomach and leave without looking back. “You are Hell, Dean Winchester.”

“You’re Heaven, Cas,” Dean said softly, vision overcome with the absolute sky in front of him.

Castiel’s fists were tight in Dean’s shirt, and his chest was heaving with desperation before the switch flipped and he pulled Dean back the way they had come. “I have a hotel room,” Cas said very seriously.

“Are you—“

Castiel’s lips were hellfire again, torturous and beautiful and capable of drawing every emotion out of him. “I am.”

“What about—“

“Dean Winchester, I have been plagued by memories of your warmth for what feels like eons. Do not make me wait any longer.”

There were no more questions within Dean’s mind other than if Castiel’s skin still felt the same against his open lips, if his dreams had diminished or enhanced the memories, if that voice still quaked and rumbled like the raging sea when his head was thrown back. “Lead the way,” Dean managed before he was pulled through a grove, deep into the park and out the other side. Leaves still clung to his jacket in the way his hands would soon be clinging to Castiel.

They went through an empty lobby, into an empty elevator, where mouth met mouth met chest met thighs, until the bell rippled between them and they crashed into the hall.

 _“What are you?”_ Dean wanted to ask, what sort of human could press fingertips past his chest and ribs and veins and aortas directly into his heart, could steal his pulse and move it south, could find it again with lips pressed against throat, back pressed against door. A single sliding motion had them careening inside, door handle catching on Dean’s shirt and slamming shut after them.

For all the time they had been apart, Castiel wasted no more, hands friction against stomach, chest, shirt, up, off, stuck. Dean tossed his jacket aside, then shirt, lips parted against the breath that had breathed life into mud, had whispered _ephaphtha_ to his soul. Holy was Castiel, and all that ran from him, and all that clung to him. For though Dean Winchester was not one to worship, he fell to his knees at the altar of Castiel.

Castiel stumbled back, until the wallpaper stopped him, until his head was pressed back against repeating flowers and his hands were grasping uselessly at two-dimensional stems, as Dean choked on the meaning of _glory_ itself.

When Castiel’s fingers lost their battle with Mother Nature and instead lost themselves in Dean’s hair, the answering moan was enough to tighten them, to pull forward, to respond likewise.

Dean _liked_ giving up his breath to Castiel, because _worthy_ was not something Dean could ever truly believe he was, but sacrificing his mouth and tongue and throat to steal breathless gasps from angelic lips got him really damn close.

And he _did_ steal them. He caught their soundwaves and filed them away for rainy nights, for when the stars refused to exist and only the echoing thunder reverberated across his shaking brain. He put them away for safe keeping, in case this was a fluke, in case Castiel woke up and realized what a mistake he had made.

With what could only be construed as a _growl,_ Castiel pulled Dean up, kissed him in much the same way a fist kisses a soon-to-be-busted lip. He pushed and pulled until Dean’s legs met couch arm, until they fell onto the cushions, then rolled onto the floor. Castiel kissed his neck, his chest, his stomach, hands undoing button and zipper until there was only bare skin for mile after nautical mile.

Dean was putty, compliant, letting Castiel taste every inch of him in an agonizing tempo, melting against his lips and teeth. “I want you,” he said, and they were the first actual words that either had said since the park, and Cas captured them with his mouth, suddenly naked, suddenly deep and passionate and pulling Dean’s knees up.

The burn was blissful and terrible and too much and not enough. It felt like Dean was being pulled in every direction, when the only direction he cared about was _towards Castiel._ His hands tightened against back and he pulled desperately, trying to get Castiel to just _fucking_ ** _move._**

Cas was grinning against his mouth, biting gently at his lips before angling out and back in, relishing the low, drawn-out noise that left Dean’s tongue.

“I love you,” Castiel said on the exhale, thrusting into Dean on the inhale. “You beautiful creature, I love you.”

And Dean was much too far gone to argue, and if Heaven itself said he was beautiful, then it must be so. “I love you too,” he managed around the gasps that threatened to replace his vocabulary. “I sh-should’ve followed you.”

“That is past,” Castiel informed him gently.

“I will follow you from now on,” Dean promised anyway, legs tightening around waist. “I will follow you w-without hesitation.”

Castiel laughed softly, head dropping and chest heaving. “Okay, Dean,” he whispered to the hot air between them. “But there will be no turning back.”

“I don’t even need to _look_ back,” Dean told him, legs shaking. “I only need to look wherever you are.”

Cas kissed him gently, bottoming out and transferring all of himself to Dean, moans spilling out of two lips and into two others that swallowed the sound. His hand dropped to wrap around Dean, and it was like Dean’s world narrowed to just Castiel, and then exploded with the force of him.

They breathed heavily, Castiel collapsing down onto Dean, and of all the things Dean had to carry recently, this was the lightest. Castiel, spent, lips pressed against his chest, stomach pressed to sticky stomach, hair mussed, eyes closed. _Trust._

“Move back home,” Dean said, half command, half plea. Castiel had always been a wild thing hiding in the body of something cozy, something that looked like it wanted nothing more than to stay at home, drink tea, and read a book. But Dean knew. Castiel was made of rebellion and adventure, and no amount of commanding or pleading would make him do anything he didn’t want to do.

But oh, how Dean wished Castiel could want _this._

“What would you do?” Cas asked softly, hot forehead raising to flood Dean’s world with blue. “If I moved back, that is.”

“Whatever you asked of me,” Dean found his soul saying, commandeering his lips for the task.

“And if I asked you to make space for me here?” Castiel pointed in the direction of Dean’s home.

“I would.”

“And if I asked you to make space for me _here?”_ he asked again, resting one finger over Dean’s heart.

“There’s no extra space there,” Dean whispered, catching the hand with his own. “You already took it all.”

Castiel’s lips twitched into a smile. “Not even for Sam?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Okay alright maybe a _little_ for Sam. He’s my brother. It’s required.” Dean kissed each of his fingers in turn. “But the rest of it is yours.”

“Hmm,” Cas hummed thoughtfully, pretending to think. “Half an apartment, most of a heart. What about your life? Is there space for me in that?”

“I think having you in my life increases the volume of it,” Dean told him seriously.

“How do you mean?” Cas traced Dean’s chest absently.

“I mean, my life’s pretty shallow right now, Cas. It’s a lot deeper when it’s got you in it.”

“Do you know how to swim?”

“I could spend my whole life swimming with you.”

Cas hid his smile in Dean’s collarbone, then rolled his eyes and kissed Dean softly on his lips. “Then it’s settled. I’ll come home.”

The smile that graced Dean’s face was enough to make Castiel feel saved.

“Sam’ll be so happy,” Dean whispered. “He keeps getting on my ass about letting you leave.”

“Would you like to pretend we aren’t together and act confused when he asks why all of my possessions are in your apartment?”

Dean laughed loudly, wrapping his arms around Castiel’s perfect form. “And here I was, thinking I couldn’t fall in love with you all over again.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Cas teased. “And I’m afraid you are, too. Shall we shower?”

“Probably for the best.”

The shower curtain was yellow, the tiles were green, and the light in Castiel’s eyes was a glorious, prodigal, blue.


End file.
